Welcome to Batman: Gotham Knights Online, your number #1 resource for all things Batman. Every week, keep up to date with all the current news surrounding the comic books, media, merchandise and listen to our weekly podcast, where we have exclusive interviews with people from the industry and a look at all things Batman past, present and future...

The website A.V. Club has got a interview with writer Grant Morrison, thanks to friend of the site Ryan for sharing this with us!The A.V Club: With Batman And Robin, you’ve been writing stories that take place in present-day DC continuity, but The Return Of Bruce Wayne takes place mostly in the past. Do you prefer to work with these iconic characters in an ongoing, what’s-happening-now way, or to retreat to the past where you can play around without messing up what other writers are up to?

GM: A little bit of both, I guess. These characters come complete with an ancestry, and I guess that’s what fascinates me about them. The notion of the DC Universe itself, which is 75 years deep or whatever, is interesting. It’s a place, but it’s also a sustained story that’s lasted for such a long time and has outlived even its creators. So going in there and getting to play with the inhabitants is quite interesting. And I think the history of them and being able to create new strands for them and new opportunities for them is equally interesting. It’s like a science experiment.

AVC: In Batman And Robin, you have Dick Grayson as Batman, not Bruce Wayne, but it still reads as “Batman.” When you’re writing the character, do you think of him as Batman, or Dick Grayson?

GM: No I always think of Dick Grayson, because I think of him as younger, skinnier, more working-class. Because for me, coming from Britain particularly, I think there’s a big class element in Batman. I like the idea that Dick Grayson was a carnival kid and kind of lower-class specimen. And Batman’s an aristocrat, a blueblood from the higher echelons of Gotham City society. But the two of them work really well together. So I saw the character in that light, and in that way, Damian the orphan is very much an aristocrat and privileged kid, so you kind of get the same dynamic, but in reverse. So when I write him, I always think of that. It’s a little more colloquial than Bruce Wayne might be.

AVC: When you write something with a long-range goal, where you know that within a year, something in particular is going to have to happen, how much does that affect your writing month-to-month?

GM: Well, as you might imagine, I make these long-range plans, and the good bits of them always remain in place, but generally on the job, you find a different way to do things, smarter ways to do things. Yeah, the tentpoles, as they call them, are always there, but things can change on the way. That’s what makes it interesting. It’s never absolutely set in stone, and you’re not following an outline point by point.

GOTHAM KNIGHTS ONLINE IS NOT AN OFFICIAL WEB-SITE OF DC COMICS. IT IS NOT ASSOCIATED, ENDORSED, AFFILIATED WITH DC COMICS. THIS IS A NON-PROFIT SITE RUN BY A FAN OF BATMAN. ALL CONTENTS ARE THE VIEWS OF THE GOTHAM KNIGHTS ONLINE AND OR THE AUTHORS OF ARTICLES OR TEXT CONTAINED WITHIN THIS WEBSITE ARE NOT THOSE OF DC COMICS. THE USE OF ANY COPY WRITTEN MATERIAL IS FOR INFORMATIONAL, NON-PROFIT USE ONLY. ALL COMIC BOOK TITLES, CHARACTERS, IMAGES, AND COVER ART ARE COPYRIGHT TO THE RESPECTIVE PUBLISHER.